Person adding soil backfill to a pine tree sapling - Anastasiia Krivenok/Getty Images When it's time to prep your yard's soil for planting a tree, grabbing some compost may seem like an obvious step.

It seems pretty simple to plant a tree. Dig a hole. Drop in a tree. Fill the hole. Add water. Go back inside and have a beer. What could go wrong? Yet year after year, we see trees planted incorrectly ...